A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste (1977)

PSA for the United Negro College Fund from 1977 features Ray Charles.
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[@cmwashington7458]

Ray Charles did the singing, and Adolph Cesear did the narration. Brother Ray (1930-2004), and Brother Adolph (1933-1986) Rest In Power.

[@johanmassy5290]

42 Years old & just learned Adolph Caesar was like me a child of a Dominican mother born & raised in Harlem. If I knew this as a child I may have been more inspired to pursue a career in acting as I loved movies since being in my Mom's belly in D.R. where she would frequent. He coined that term "because a mind is a terrible thing to waste".

[@fargeeks]

at first i thought it was Garfeel Ruff

[@PlasmaCoolantLeak]

Adolph Caesar was great in "A Soldier's Story."

[@VicR914]

👍🏽👍🏽I love that’s film A Soldier’s Story and I always loved Ray Charles voice. May they both continue to rest in peace. 🕊️🕊️🎵🎼🎶📺🎞️🎬⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[@VicR914]

@@PlasmaCoolantLeakexcellent

[@liesdamnliesandstatsweird1934]

Wow. This commercial takes me back in time. Yes, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Thanks for the memories!!!👍🏽👧🏾👍🏽👍🏾🤗

[@kayodephillips5435]

Amen it took me back to good times

[@tomholm4456]

indeed.

[@archieletsyouknow5508]

💯🤔 with the stats they need to reshow this commercial😮

[@annibaclark9913]

I loved seeing this brought me back to my childhood ❤. Thank you for sharing 😊 I was meditating upon the Scripture Romans 12:1-2 and this slogan came to mind and I just searched it up and I found your KZbin channel.😊 Great memories!

[@IceManLikeGervin]

I just love watching these type of PSAs as a kid...so positive!!

[@erictaylor5462]

I wonder if that kid went to college. I sure hope so. He'd be in his 50's by now.

[@joytulip2]

I remember this ad campaign as a child! It fueled my interest in becoming a teacher/professor, and I eventually did write and win grant funding to the tune of over 31 million in support of underserved students in our public education systems. The struggle for equity and inclusion is as real today as it was in the 1970s. Sadly, we now have a cacophony of media messages confusing and dividing us. I won't live long enough to see a sweeping reform on the level of my childhood idealism, but I feel hopeful that one day...we will get this right.

[@firstptr3and10_]

👏👏👏

[@AG-dc7gl]

I remember this commercial from my childhood also. My, how things have changed.

[@doroteotimtim8854]

A very well said quote in the annals of the uneducated world!......

[@williamcordier1201]

It wasn’t about equity and inclusion back then. We all wanted equality, where everyone would have an equal opportunity. The UNCF was about making sure the opportunity was there. A college education was so much more affordable for intelligent lower and middle class students back then. The greed of colleges has destroyed so many aspects of people’s lives.

[@michaelsaint9794]

you look so young in your pfp.. .🤔. you were a child in the seventies?

[@urbansmoothent4]

Thank you sooo much!! I’ve been looking for this ad for a long time!! I miss the 70’s ! Black folk were so much more in touch with their culture then!

[@janicetaylor9538]

A motivator! This video couldn't be more fitting and prevalent today. Memories of this commercial growing up.

[@charlesrobinson7469]

When I see this commercial, I think about this video I saw where this young man was attacked & beatup by some street thugs, because he was excelling in school. I'm by no means a tough guy, but I wished I could've at least intervened and walked with that young man home & to school every week. Little do those idiots know, he could be the one to defened them in court, or may even save their lives one day. Glory to God for giving kids like him & the one in this commercial for having the ambition & drive to make an effort to better their lives, and others.☺

[@RabidEwok1284]

Oh! I've been looking for this ad for so long! I remember seeing it on TV when it originally aired. . So moving and powerful, even to the 9/10 year old I was in 1977. As were the other United Negro College Fund Ads, and still are 40+ years later. I'm a sucker for these ancient Ad Council ads in general. They had a way of trying to encourage respect and understanding of our fellow citizens, despite our differences. Rather than the disrespect and divisiveness of today's media.

[@needles1975]

How to waste the human mind is to deny TRUTH tenderness loyalty and compassion TLCs is the cure for #PTSD Postpartum Traumatization Stress Decompensation

[@williamcordier1201]

Well said. It was a better country when we had commercials and media that encouraged us to all pull together. Now in media we are divisive, with each aspect of our lives (race, religion, sex, politics) trying to tear another down for their own benefit. Things were far from perfect back then, but it was an all around better vibe in the country.

[@radranks6281]

Get out?

[@kojimayuhay]

YEeeees, I'm re-watching Get Out (amazing movie btw imo) and it brought me here.

[@s.s5933]

And US

[@KeyserSoze23]

I can't we're under lockdown.

[@millionairesclubllc3193]

Teacup ?

[@clyde642006]

I remember this commercial coming on while watching shows like The Jefferson’s, Good Times and Welcome Back Kotter.” They used Teddy Pendergrass voice on one of these commercials back in the late 70s when he was still singing with Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes. Great song, great commercial.

[@charlesrobinson7469]

It was " Wake up Everybody" and the commercial was about teachers

[@monos70]

God I love the low creepy voice and static noise inthese 70s ads

[@jenniferdickson-bonds8314]

I remember this commercial..

[@EssentialClassic]

I believe that's Adolph Caesar doing the narration for this commercial.

[@treysince]

It is

[@andrealexander2236]

Ray Charles and adolp ceaser in the same commercial

[@mrbrown6421]

2022 - That worked out well.

[@hankscorpio8928]

I remember this and love it.

[@cosmickatamari]

Ad campaigns like this need to come back.

[@g00gleminus96]

I'd pay to see it happen just so I could sit back and watch retrumplican heads explode.

[@DavesFitLife]

Absolutely

[@rogermccormick5248]

Rap has the same quality as the music you might hear at a funeral. Gloomy with a hollowness.

[@somethingyousaid5059]

It isn't that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. It's that a mind is just a terrible thing. That's all.

[@EuropeanQoheleth]

No it isn't.

[@samuelgriffin4167]

UNCF commercial A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste has been iconic for as long as I remember

[@slimpickens01]

I didn't know Pastor Geno did voiceovers 😂😂😂

[@Chief23_White-Dove-50]

😆😆😆😆😆💯🔥👍🏾

[@anye76]

Wow this takes me back. I was a very little girl when this commercial aired. If only this message could be aired again

[@kennethhuang371]

DIONNE WARWICK, BILLY DAVIS JR. & MARILYN McCOO DID VERSIONS OF THIS UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND AD FOR RADIO IN THE 70’S. The tag line is still very important: A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE. Kenneth Huang 12/15/22.

[@kevinh.whalum5399]

Ray Charles PLUS Adolph Caesar?? That couldn't miss if it tried.

[@Dtown96]

This is where that guy who was diving in a pool for crack in Bumfights got it from

[@airons1895]

While the GOP is busy rewriting school curriculums to "dumb down" education, therefore, creating a permanent class of uneducated, low paying worker bees, let us Black folks keep believing and singing this song for our children, encouraging them to get an excellent education, return to their communities and "nation build"!

[@Upcamehill]

It's the Democrats who are dumbing down education.

[@gavinvalle5653]

The narrator for this ad is the late, great Adolph Caesar, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of the bitter, doomed Sgt. Waters in 1984's "A Soldier's Story."

[@rogermccormick5248]

Some if not all Rappers needed a father that would help them to sing better.

[@NYCBG]

Could we hear what progress the UNCF has made in the last 20-30-40 yrs? Much obliged.

[@rogermccormick5248]

How Buzzed i gotta be to yell my guts out into a microphone?

[@sunflowerpwr.8821]

Long time no see... still true.

[@rogermccormick5248]

Rap is what you hear when society collapses on it's self.

[@davidwolf226]

This add should be brought out of mothballs and played over and over again.

[@detectivefiction3701]

The music is great. I was born in 1977 but of course don't actually remember the '70s. I wish I did, though.

[@AtillaTheHung1]

Please give to the United Negrow College Fund cause a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

[@charleschase7945]

I agree!

[@richardm3773]

John Smith Mayor at :18 looks like Sherriff Ep Bridges from Waltons....

[@AlbionSupreme]

Would that there was a mind to begin with

[@rogermccormick5248]

MAGA The good old days were the best times on Earth.

[@Y0Leeroy2]

Facts

[@lgman83]

0:13 Dr. Keegan-Michael Key Sr.

[@stanktail]

The United Weed Grow Knowledge Fund Because its Terrible to not Waste a Mind

[@rogermccormick5248]

Some of them rap songs are from the pits of Hell.

[@perrinfan]

Wow...been looking for this. Growing up in Detroit in the 70s and 80s, this was a common thing said among my friend group. I am so happy I was raised in a diverse neighborhood with people who looked nothing like me. Truly, I believed we can all raise each other up and destroy the inequities and prejudices that divide us. Never in a million years did I think our country would devolve into a more segregated, divided, and racism-riddled country. Growing up as a white kid with a Black stepfather, a white mother, and mixed-race siblings, I thought people like Marjorie Trailerpark Greene were an antiquated fiction in some forgotton corner of a nameless southern town. I was so naive. The white supremacist yahoos were just underground. Social media and the internet provided them the town square they always thirsted for but never could find. It is easier for them to glob on to one another. No person is free unless all people are free. Y'all can play with ideas of racial or social supremacy but, in the end, we are on the same ship and you best start regarding all Americans as your brethren. Otherwise, we will lose it all.

[@rogermccormick5248]

To me a Rapper is king of noise for sure. Like the Wailing Wall of pity.

[@p.bateman7033]

What changed?

[@SisteenChapelCathedral]

🦉

[@rogermccormick5248]

And all that BASS To much ridiculous

[@joostpudlo]

The American Dream.. lol

[@rogermccormick5248]

What happened? Your Ancestors in R and B are frowning.

[@rogermccormick5248]

It amazes me how awful it sounds as others are listening to it. It's like what happened to this great country i love. THAT'S MODERN MUSIC? Looks like music has reached the bottom of the barrel.

[@scottlong3593]

Biggie reference anyone?

[@SeamHead33]

riding coattails

[@xubair96]

Wish if there was a similar campaign for mental health as well. Tbh this slogan makes much more sense there.

[@rogermccormick5248]

I lived the golden age of Rock & Roll. Rap is not productive or beneficial in anyway.

[@xaviercast970]

Hey bro...what you call me?

[@Y0Leeroy2]

what in the everybody hates Chris

[@lesleykramer7207]

African Americans held so much promise in the seventies. I wonder what went wrong ...

[@davidlucasmachado2831]

Lyndon B Johnson...that is what went wrong

[@lesleykramer7207]

@@davidlucasmachado2831 Reductive, simplistic - and invariably, wrong. Johnson's social reforms might be a contributing factor, but it certainly isn't the *ONLY* cause of the current malaise and dysfunction in the community. There is evidence to suggest that some of that has been purposely manufactured - to create a perpetual underclass; Social engineering - if you will.

[@davidlucasmachado2831]

@@lesleykramer7207 interesting

[@Punicia]

@@lesleykramer7207 Ronald Reagan. That's what went wrong.

[@elysehahn3692]

@@lesleykramer7207 What do you mean by "promise" and how that relates to the video?

[@rogermccormick5248]

I am forced to hear rap five days a week. If they could sing they's be dangerous. No harmony at all.

[@rogermccormick5248]

I have a question about your Rap music. Really? That's your best? They did better in the 50's and 60's.

[@SGprooo]

*GET OUT!*

[@juliahamilton9125]

Schuled 2 Waste it!🐥

[@outatimemcfly1953]

salam evrybody this commercials is no funny is no good the créator love evrybody inchallah muhammad ali

[@thetonymasters]

Didn’t know this is where Peele got it from.

[@aconater]

🤦🏾‍♂️

[@TheKing60210]

Bruh

[@MadAngel209]

:12 the actor, who played the doctor, appeared on "That's My Mama" :26 the actor, who played the elected mayor, appeared on "Good Times", and "The Jeffersons" :35 the actor, who played the architect, appeared on "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "ROOTS"

[@erictaylor5462]

What about the kid?

[@renmomtha-renaissancesoul8849]

Eric Taylor his name is Jerrod Johnson. He starred in a Sid and Marty Kroft show, “The Lost Saucer”

[@randyposs6281]

Adolph in soldier story was great character

[@d.a.elliottjr.367]

I remember this song but didn't know Ray Charles sang it.

[@lambda2857]

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. This was true in the 1970s, and this is true today.

[@VicR914]

Right On

[@kingporter67]

Awesome 1977 P.S.A. commercial!!

[@JadedAnon]

Actor Adolf Caesar did the voice-over work for major films in theaters. He did the speaking voice over in this commercial.

[@kimmy1984]

I remember this commercial when I was a kid

[@MJChappell]

When this aired in 1977, I was 17 years old. Back then and before, using the word Negro... There wasn't an issue using it. Prior being the age of 17, I can't remember ever hearing the N word. Hmmm? At the end, you see that young kid running up the stairs into the library... I was doing that in the 4th grade..thru the 7th grade. I STAYED in the library. I tried to explain and tell people what my education was like growing up in The South Bronx...They would look at me strange. 7th graded thru 9th...JHS 136... I took a test to get into High School of Art & Design. My 7th thru 9th grade teacher, Mr. Flannoy paved the way for me. In High School.. I didn't have any academic classes, my reading and math scores..off the charts. All my classes were art and gym, so.. I cut H.S. almost the whole 10th grade. I think I had less than 30 days total, and still was promoted. Attended 2 months in my 11th year, still going to libraries, museums throught NYC. May 1977, dropout and went into The Army.

[@firstptr3and10_]

I was born in the 60s. I am labeled as colored. I dont like it.

[@LarryDavis-z2x]

😢😢darnit..i got something in my eyes right now.. i was 10 watching these before school and morning cartoons

[@leighburton832]

This commercial was before my time! I remember the Lyontine Price commercial when she sang that song!

[@shallwocharlie]

I remember this sign on the bus.

[@drbonesshow1]

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Yes, but the average mind doesn’t have much to waste; so no loss there. Signed, A. Einstein

[@drbonesshow1]

@@NotNow-gf2me Keep gerkin' the gherkin. Not now later. Dumb-arse can't spell simple words - now that is a mind wasted.

[@MIA_1776]

By 1977, Ben Carson would have finished his Medical School training from the University of Michigan. A great mind that excelled when the odds were stacked against him growing up.

[@morfeo904]

You could have used a better example than Ben Carson.

[@domesticterrorist483]

What odds were stacked against him? Or any other knee g for that matter??

[@sun_free]

Does anyone remember the UNCF ad where there was an empty seat at the end for the woman who was supposed to graduate/or be in college? I’ve been looking for it everywhere

[@rogermccormick5248]

I did like Tupac and i use to jam on TON-LOC. What i hear today is all so bad to my ears.

[@rogermccormick5248]

I often ask myself what on Earth are these people thinking listening to that whatever it is. Rap

[@kingjeremysircornwell7847]

Control, is a Ville temptress. But can you run it.

[@Hchris101]

Hardcore rap music 🎼

[@kincamell2]

Heavy Gratitude

[@margaretramirez7974]

Where did we go wrong ?

[@dragonballa5083]

Thoughts?

[@angieBhanson]

Who is the kid in the commercial? Is that Rodney Allen Ripey?

[@michaelm.c.hampton1157]

Looks like him... He's the Jack-n-Box kid...😁 I miss those burgers.

[@angieBhanson]

Yes, they are good. They still exist. I see them when I visit relatives in South Carolina.

[@michaelm.c.hampton1157]

@@angieBhanson 😕 wow, not in Chicago, but its still good to know.

[@51516]

"Would you like extra Jack Sauce on your burger?" "I don't know. What's in the Jack Sauce?" "Sorry, that's our secret recipe." "In that case i'd like absolutely no Jack Sauce please!"

[@TeamTuc]

That is definitely not Rodney Allen Ripley.... The only similarity is the kid sporting an afro...lol